The user nkans on eBay is selling knockoff digium cards. That I'm cool with, since digium discontinued sales of this model anyway, which is, literally, a glorified winmodem.

But this "nkans" fellow has a catch. The cards are cheap, and he charges:
US $9.49 + $3.50 for each additional item shipped.

I wouldn't complain about that either. I could see that price if it were packed nicely in a box or other crushproof container.

But it wasn't. It came in a damned padded envelope with $1.84 postage. What the hell is that about?
I posted neutral feedback.

Then the buttwipe gave me negative feedback.
I left:

Neutral feedback – works beautifully – but $12 is robbery for $1.84 postage on a bubble envelope. Buyer paul.timmins ( 29) Jan-01-05 21:37 5736954152
Reply by nkans: My grandfather will not pay me for packing charges. You accepted & bid contract.

So this guy, who has recieved tons of negative and neutral feedback about his terrible shipping methods. And he blames his grandfather. I don't know what the hell that has to do with anything.

And then he destroys my perfect feedback with:

Negative feedback – Not a recommended buyer. Bids what mentioned in the description and complains. Seller nkans ( 670) Jan-02-05 03:41 5736954152
Reply by paul.timmins: Seller never mentions $12.99 shipping = a padded envelope + $1.80 postage. Jan-08-05 00:31

Again, what a buttwipe.

I'm just warning people because I want them to know that while the cards are a good deal, you're gonna get ripped off on shipping, and they might not arrive in working condition. And if you complain, he'll post an incoherent comment about his grandfather and screw up your feedback rating.

Just looking out for my peoples 🙂

I was getting tired of having my machine not DHCP on the ethernet when I boot. I have eth0's auto up disabled because it's usually not connected to a network when it boots. But sometimes it is, and logging in on a shell and ifup'ing it was getting old. So I came up with a cheap trick.

(I'd use the daemons that detect link beat and bring the interface up and down based on it, but for much of what I do, that's unsuitable for various reasons as well, so I just want to assume that the interface should only act automatically if it's plugged into a network on boot.)

(in /etc/network/interfaces)

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
        pre-up /sbin/mii-tool eth0|grep ok > /dev/null

This takes the output of mii-tool's report on eth0. Since grep returns an error code if the string is not found (mii-tool reports "eth0: no link" if not connected, and "eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD, link ok" (or similar) when it's connected), the interface going up will fail if mii-tool doesn't have an "ok" in the return. So if it's not connected on boot, it won't go up automatically, but if it is, it'll DHCP it on boot.

It's something quasi-obvious but neat.

And to all my friends back in MI, I just want to point out that I have only been wearing a coat during the evenings. 😛

I'll be in the San Francisco Bay area from the evening of Tuesday, 30 November, to Sunday, 5 December, around 3pm.

I may or may not have independent transportation. It depends.

Recommendations on places in SFO that rent to us kids under 25 but over 21 would be gratefully accepted. It's looking like Enterprise rental is going to be the ticket for me, but with a $80 surcharge because I'm "only" 23, it doesn't sound very cool.

And I'll have my cell with me if any of you happen to be in the area. +1-248-379-7826

~xH3Yx~~x3V3RYON3x~~xIx~~xWROT3x~~xAx~~xBITx~~xOFx~~xOBSFUCAT3Dx~
~xP3RLx~~xTHATx~~xTRANSLAT3Zx~~x3V3Nx~~xTH3x~~xB3STx~~xWRITT3Nx~
~xPROS3x~~xINTOx~~xSOM3THINGx~~xTHATx~~xBL3NDZx~~xINx~~xMOR3x~
~xWITHx~~xTH3x~~xAV3RAG3x~~xLIV3JOURNALx~~xPOSTx~!!!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone~xR3M3MB3R,x~~xIFx~~xYOUx~~xN33Dx~~xANYx~~xCUSTOMx~
~xP3RLx~~xPROGRAMMING,x~~xMYx~~xCONTACTx~~xINFORMATIONx~~xIZx~
~xINx~~xMYx~~xUS3RINFOx~!!!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone!!!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone

:-)!!!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone

Sorry about your eyes…
What that said was:

Hey everyone I wrote a bit of obsfucated perl that translates even the best written prose into something that blends in more with the average livejournal post
Remember, if you need any custom perl programming, my contact information is in my userinfo

🙂

#!/usr/bin/perl
while($_=uc <STDIN>){$_=~s/S /Z /g;$_=~s/\s*([A-Z,0-9]+)\s*/~x$1x~/g;$_=~s/E/3/g;$_s=~s/I/1/g;$_=~s/$/!!!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone/;print $_; };

(The next program reverses the effect)
#!/usr/bin/perl
while($_=<STDIN>){$_=~s/!+1+oneoneone//g;$_=~s/~x([A-Z,0-9]+)x~/ $1 /g;$_=~s/Z /S /g;$_=~s/3/E/g;$_s=~s/1/I/g;print lc $_; };

Broadband Over Power Lines is the new big thing, but a Platt’s study shows that even consumers might not be interested unless it is offered to them at dirt cheap prices. “Nearly one-quarter of residential customers in our survey said they would be very interested in BPL if their utility could beat the price of broadband internet alternatives,” said Michael Reid, a research director at Platts. “But interest dropped sharply when we introduced specific price points. At $29.95 per month-below typical prices for internet access via cable or DSL-only 9 percent were still very interested.” Is anyone listening?

From http://www.gigaom.com/2004/11/even_consumers_d.php

It's good to hear some positive news these days.